The purpose of the investment is to fuel cloud innovation and customer success in the region.

Global marketing firm IDC has forecasted that Europe’s public cloud software market will grow almost 12 times faster than other IT segments to reach €33.3 billion by 2019.

The new US$100m commitment will provide funding and support to the entrepreneurs driving this growth in Europe.

Salesforce said that the global shift to the cloud has opened the door to new and exciting social, mobile and data science technologies and has created unprecedented growth in cloud computing companies across Europe.

Incredible innovation happening in Europe today

“There is so much incredible innovation happening in Europe today and we want to empower the next generation of enterprise cloud start-ups in the region,” said John Somorjai, EVP of Corporate Development and Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce.

“Our US$100m commitment strengthens our mission to help start-ups grow and give back to their communities.”

With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage the expertise of the Salesforce Foundation to incorporate its 1-1-1 model of integrated philanthropy to make giving back part of its business model.

“This new commitment from Salesforce Ventures will stimulate the next generation of enterprise technology and grow the Salesforce ecosystem to drive even greater customer success in Europe,” said Miguel Milano, President, Salesforce EMEA.

“Salesforce Ventures provides not only the funding, network and introductions, but also the mentorship and framework to help companies understand how they can give back as they grow,” said Ruben Daniels, co-founder and CEO, Cloud9 IDE.

“We are proud of our commitment to pledge 1pc and expand diversity in the technology industry by making the community a key stakeholder in our business.”